The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 30, 1996
Filed:
Jan. 17, 1995
Richard Mandelbaum, Manalapan, NJ (US);
AT&T Corp., Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
An updatable, interrogation system is provided for interrogating portable data cards. The interrogation system sequentially communicates with each portable data card as it comes within communication range in a first time period for determining a unique identification number associated with each data card. Once the identification number for a card is obtained by the interrogation system, a predetermined transaction, such as deactivating an electronic barrier to entering a limited access area, for the holder of the identified card is initiated. The interrogation system then completes each predetermined transaction of reading from and writing data to each one of the cards while communicating in a second time period. The present invention also discloses an interrogation system where a locking command is transmitted to the portable data card, which is subsequently disabled by a lock reset command issued by the interrogator in response to completion of the predetermined transaction.